Created by Joe Benitez, Lady Mechanika is set in the Victorian Era. That's all I need to say for you to instantly register that this is yet another entry into the steampunk category, but Benitez takes things over to the dark side by having the heroine the sole survivor of a mini-massacre; as you eventually discover, she was found alive but with mechanical components where her human parts were.

Thus, the "Lady Mechanika" moniker.

And then, logically *wink* of course she makes the leap to private detective, tackling lost causes and cases no one else would touch, all the while unearthing clues to her former life . . . not for the squeamish!

Aspen MLT, founded by the late Michael Turner (former Top Cow and Witchblade artist, creator of the long in-development Fathom movie), technically already has multiple high-profile properties on shelves or in development as film projects or for video games. But with the arrival this month of Mechanika on comic store shelves and websites (pre-order ish#0 here or if you can find a better deal on another site . . .) Aspen MLT is really gaining ground on the majors; Mechanika, if these enthusiastic early reactions are anything to go by, Mechanika could break out in a really, really big way, not unlike Red a few years ago, or Sandman two decades ago.

No, Aspen MLT did not pay me to write favorable blurbs about Mechanika. Even without an assist from this post, Mechanika would work. It's important to understand that these wheels were in motion practically from the initial unveiling of the design of Lady Mechanika in the late spring, along with additional exposure at this past SDCC and the substantial amount of coverage from comics websites and the like. Just as the rapid ascension of Witchblade from an independently-published property by a small (relative to Image and DC) house to a cable television series occurred, and comparisons to Spawn regarding time-to-popularity are especially apt (in the case of Spawn it was four, maybe five years until a motion picture deal was struck, and the film was made), it would not be surprising to see Lady Mechanika platform at the mainstream consciousness level two, three years out.

Again, it's not as if Aspen MLT is fresh in the game, like this start-up just finding its way on the comic book scene. Aspen's been at this a while now. But, I posit Lady Mechanika will be the property that finally earns Aspen MLT a place at the Round Table alongside WildStorm/DC, Marvel, Top Cow and Image.